Space, Silence & Isolation
by HuckingHarkness
Summary: When the darkness comes for Jack, there is always something he can do. Something he can do until the end of time or the end of himself, whichever is first. Inspired by the TW novel 'In The Silence'


**Space, Silence & Isolation**

Inspiration: Into The Silence _the Torchwood novel by Sarah Pinborough "I'm surprised I even had it in the database. Must have been feeling thorough that day."_

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In the stillness of the night Jack Harkness sits. He is unique. The eternal life that bleeds through his veins, to most would be considered a blessing. To him, just a curse. A perpetual existence with no end in sight. Right now though, to entice his mind from such dark thoughts Jack Harkness has found something to do.

The task is an endless one. Perhaps as endless as his own existence, but for now, it will keep himself from straying to the dark recesses of his own mind in the isolated silence, in the dead of the night. The dead of the night. It is the one time when requesting the company of humans would be simply selfish. And he is not that man; not anymore.

Jack considers if having a presence, even asleep below him would stay the dark thoughts that plague him, but again it would not be fair. Besides, Jack has entertainment of his own to keep such restless thoughts at bay. It will not distract him entirely from inner thoughts, be they of loneliness and isolation or of the philosophical future, wherever, his mind will choose to meander.

Jack stirs, moving towards the glass, barely disturbing the silence, as he moves through the space, examining the drawn detail there. To most it would be indeterminate dots and lines, but Jack Harkness is not most. Jack has knowledge, vast knowledge, of the planets surrounding this solar system. He knows places that the most advanced telescope is yet to see; had been to many of those places. To most where he has been is not even a stretch of the imagination, wide and fanciful as it may be.

Jack started this potentially endless task soon after he began at Torchwood, when the most reliable form of record was pencil to paper. Now, Jack has charts in the computer; the most advanced piece of technology on the planet. Jack has simulations he can run, endless databases he can add to. Jack has something to do.

Tonight it is one small section of the galaxy he is adding to. It's at the farthest corner of the known universe. Known to Earth anyway, he mentally amends. Beneath the various gridlines he was creating and marking out coordintes on, the large screen is filled with swirls of coloured gases and dark spots of various shapes, which were the computer generated representations of planets. And dotted sporadically around them, stars. Brighter in colour, burning orbs of bright gases; mini suns on this edge of the universe.

Jack is pleased with tonight's work. It is full of rich, glorious detail, yet to be explored by humans. So much detail, he's even added The Silent Planet, on a whim, before moving onto more glorious sights. Soon the silent stillness of the Hub is forgotten as Jack has his own virtual adventures in space. Many of these planets he has visited. And memories stir on the surface of his mind. Sometimes he remembers their inhabitants, or their culture. An adventure had. Sometimes it is just a small aspect of the planet that remains in the immortals memory, a frozen lake or crystal sea, or an eternally twisting rainbow. Of some planets he remembers just a name, but each is unique and each deserves its place in the database, with any key words Jack can pin to the planet or its people.

He works in the dead of night through to the morning and when day breaks his work is complete. At least for now- until next time, when the darkness threatens, then he will add more of his own knowledge to the known universe and perhaps one day the database will be completed, but perhaps not. More of the universe is being discovered all the time and Jack, though it seems he has all of time stretched ahead of him, will never keep up with that. But that is okay, because in that way the task for him is an endless one. He will always have something missing, or incomplete that he can add to and fill in. This immortal knowledge of Space and it will keep thoughts of Isolation in the Silence at bay.

_finis._

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Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in a review?

Carrie ; )

25 Aug 09


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